


299. acid tongue

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [122]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 21:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8417899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: It’s comforting to know that Helena would fight for Kira just as much as Sarah would.
It’s less comforting knowing that she would do that fighting while still wearing her banana costume, but, you know. Sarah will take her comfort where she can get it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEKEND

Helena makes a terrified squeal when the Pixy Stix dust hits her tongue; she pulls her tongue back in her mouth, shoots Sarah a look of baffled betrayal. “Ithow,” she says sadly.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Sarah says flatly. She keeps walking along the block. She can see Kira a house ahead; she is easy to spot, with her silvery princess dress and fairy wings. (She struggled to choose a costume.) If she gets far enough ahead Sarah will – she doesn’t know. Sprint after her. Scream.

It’s comforting, to know that Helena would do the same.

It’s less comforting knowing that she would do the same while still wearing that banana costume, but, you know. She’ll take her comfort where she can get it.

“It is _sour_ ,” Helena says again, having evidently swallowed all her sugar dust. She’s smacking her lips, still looking shocked and betrayed. She narrows her eyes at some distant point in space, and says: “I like it.” She sounds like she is coming to the end of a great decision. Problem solved, she dumps the entire rest of the stick (Stix? Sarah is bad at the logistics of Halloween candy) into her mouth, grimaces, and swallows it.

“My tongue is burning,” she says. “Acid. Poison. It hurts.”

“Then you shouldn’t have _eaten_ it,” Sarah says. Helena blinks at her in confusion, makes a face that clearly says that this sounds like a falsehood, and returns her attention to Kira. She is skipping back, now, with more candy in her bag that she presents to Helena. Helena takes it and immediately starts peeling the foil off of a chocolate pumpkin with great enthusiasm.

“Thank you, angel,” she says. “This is the most candy I have ever seen.”

“You don’t want to save some of that for yourself, monkey?” Sarah says.

“No,” Kira says cheerily. “It’s Auntie Helena’s first Halloween! I’ve had a whole bunch of Halloweens, she can have this one.” Point made, she runs off to the next house.

“Monk—” Sarah tries, but she’s already gone. “Okay,” she mutters, sticking her hands back in her pockets. She feels as sour as the candy, like she’s ruining the fun. It’s not that she _wants_ that, to ruin the fun, it’s just – she’d feel better if Kira was back here, holding her hand, and Helena was somewhere at home and also not dressed as a giant banana. They keep getting strange looks and Sarah wants to flip her hood over her head; Sarah wants to disappear.

Instead a hand nudges her in the elbow and she is offered a foil-covered chocolate eyeball. It and Helena both stare at her solemnly.

“No thanks,” Sarah says. She turns back to the sidewalk ahead and so she almost misses the eyeball slowly and cautiously wiggling its way back into her line of sight.

“It wants you to eat it,” Helena’s voice says. “It says _eat me, Sarah, I have caramel inside of me, I am delicious_.”

“You the candy whisperer now?” Sarah says, pushing the candy out of her way so she can keep walking.

“Not as hard as English,” Helena says cheerfully. “Mostly just eats and eating. Easy peasies.” She is quiet for a moment. “You can have it. If you want. Halloween is fun for eating candy shaped like eyeballs and skulls and other parts of human bodies.”

“I’m good,” Sarah says. She risks a glance to the side, meets Helena’s kicked-puppy expression, sighs in exasperation at her own awfulness. Helena is visibly wilting. Her banana top is drooping a little bit.

“Gimme one of the Pixy Stix,” she says. Helena perks up, rummages around in her pants pockets and pulls out a blue sugarstick.

“Here,” she says, thrusting it out, and Sarah takes it. When she rips the top off a puff of dust goes flying merrily into the air. Sarah tilts it in Helena’s direction – cheers – and dumps the whole thing down her throat.

She immediately coughs half of it back out.

“Oh, god,” she gasps. “Holy _shit_ , that’s disgusting.”

Next to her Helena is wheezing merrily, gulping little giggles. “Your face!” she says. “So squinty! So angry. A good face. Kira,” she yells, “ _anhel_ , come watch your mother be defeated by candies.”

Sarah uses one hand to give Helena the finger – she’s still coughing, can’t speak – and uses the other to reach into Helena’s pocket and steal the fun-sized Snickers. Helena makes an outraged sound, but it’s too late: Sarah is running ahead of her, unwrapping the bar and sticking the whole thing into her mouth in one motion learned from years of stealing from siblings.

“Cruel!” Helena calls, trying to keep up, a frantic banana jogging through the streets. “You ate my snicker! You are bad!”

Sarah laughs over her shoulder, keeps running, closer and closer to her daughter at the house ahead. Next to her Helena has stopped yelling and she’s laughing too, and it’s dark, and children are chorusing _trick-or-treat_ , and for one blissful moment Sarah gets it. Happy Halloween.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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